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New M1 Mac Mini as HTPC?

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hulkss:
Thinking about a new M1 Mac Mini. Can I expect it to work well as compared to a Windows 10 HTPC with Media Center?

Awesome Donkey:
Nope. I really doubt it.

On Windows there's things for video like madVR, which isn't available outside of Windows. Then there's the Apple Silicon Macs themselves which JRiver Media Center for Mac may not work that well for awhile, if at all from day one. There's a chance the app may not function at all on Apple Silicon Macs. Intel x86_64 apps can run on the new Apple Silicon Macs using Rosetta 2 (though nobody yet knows how slow x86_86 apps will run though), but there's always a chance an app like MC won't work as well or may not work at all. In addition, video playback functioning all depends on if Apple completely removes OpenGL support, which MC for Mac still uses for video, specifically all OpenGL in Big Sur for Apple Silicon Macs (which I suspect to be the case). If they do (and require Metal for this) it may be a good while before MC works with it for video, assuming it runs as-is in the first place. Finally I'd wait for third-party reviews, since Apple's hype never shows what's really happening. There's no way the M1 chip is as fast as an Intel CPU, and I suspect once reviews are out it's going to reflect that (which is something that could/will affect video performance). And it'll be several years before they even catch up to that kind of performance.

So no, I wouldn't recommend it.

JimH:
As Awesome Donkey says, it could be a while, if ever, before we support them.

glynor:

--- Quote from: Awesome Donkey on November 12, 2020, 03:32:24 am ---There's no way the M1 chip is as fast as an Intel CPU, and I suspect once reviews are out it's going to reflect that (which is something that could/will affect video performance). And it'll be several years before they even catch up to that kind of performance.

--- End quote ---

I would NOT be so confident on that particular portion there. Apple has built the best SOC team in the industry, by a wide margin, and Intel has been seriously struggling for years now. This particular chip is their "thin & light" version of the M-series chip, and it is wiping the floor with everything but the highest-end AMD and Intel CPUs.

Next year when a M1X (or whatever they call it) comes out designed for desktop machines? I don't see how anything will keep up.

Reports are that Rosetta 2 is quite good, and with the overhead available in the M1, often runs x86 code faster-than native on a comparable Intel CPU. It is going to be an interesting few years in CPUs, for the first time in a long time.

Awesome Donkey:
The good news is it looks like OpenGL is still supported in Big Sur (even on Apple Silicon Macs) but it'll likely be removed from the next major macOS version. MC uses ANGLE (with OpenGL ES), which it looks like there's progress on getting it working on Apple's Metal on macOS. So there's hope there that in the future it'll just work without needing to directly port MC to Metal just by updating ANGLE.

So there's indeed a chance MC27 will work on a Apple Silicon Mac because of the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer. However if you manage to get MC27 running on an Apple Silicon Mac, if I had to guess it'll probably run very slowly because of this and features may not work. So keep that in mind and also keep in mind that running MC on an Apple Silicon Mac is very likely going to be considered unsupported by JRiver so you'd be on your own if any issues arise when doing so.

Again, I wouldn't recommend an Apple Silicon Mac, e.g. a Mac Mini, for a HTPC if you're wanting to run MC on it. Not only can you not install Windows via Boot Camp anymore the performance with the first generation Apple Silicon Macs is probably going to be terrible.

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